One of the most important Iranian filmmakers, and one of the biggest names in independent cinema today, Jafar Panahi was arrested in March 2010, along with his wife and daughter. Accused of having offended the state of Iran, he was sentenced to six years of house arrest and banned from filmmaking for 20 years. However, the inventive director has found ways to keep on shooting, reinventing his cinema and adapting to this condition. His latest feature, “Three Faces”, was a road movie of sorts, which followed the search for a young actress forced to hide herself, and her craft, from her conservative family. With “Hidden”, Panahi is back on a similar road, tracking, along with his daughter, a girl he’s been told has a wonderful voice, but due to family and religious restrictions, remains reclusive at home, hiding her talent. Panahi films this girl – better yet, her voice – in an emotional and powerful gesture, so as not to let neither this girl, nor others with similar fates, fall to oblivion; with the purpose of remembering, in her figure and her story, other voices forced to silence. It’s cinema as weapon against oblivion and time, and as a safeguard of what is beautiful and invisible. (JA)